Harvard Gun Study Refutes Gun Grabber Claims

In an almost fifty-page study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, authors Don Kates and Gary Mauser, demonstrate again and again that strict gun control laws do not correlate with lower murder rates, neither in the United States nor Europe. In fact, just as is true in the U.S. where the highest murder rates occur in cities like Chicago, with the strictest gun control laws, the highest murder rate among developed countries is in Russia where gun ownership is highly restricted.The study is a long but interesting read with several tables and lots of statistics and well worth your time. But for those not inclined to read it, here is the conclusion drawn by the authors:

CONCLUSION

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil -- at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed strict gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Emphasis mine

In other words, as we gun advocates have long known, the observable facts simply will not support the emotional arguments of the gun grabbers regarding both violent crime and suicide. Interestingly, the study also relates a survey of incarcerated felons that confirms that a criminal's greatest fear is that his victim may be armed. That certainly makes the case for a well-armed citizenry regardless of the definition of militia.

You should read the entire study and then make sure your elected representatives read it.

In an almost fifty-page study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, authors Don Kates and Gary Mauser, demonstrate again and again that strict gun control laws do not correlate with lower murder rates, neither in the United States nor Europe. In fact, just as is true in the U.S. where the highest murder rates occur in cities like Chicago, with the strictest gun control laws, the highest murder rate among developed countries is in Russia where gun ownership is highly restricted.

The study is a long but interesting read with several tables and lots of statistics and well worth your time. But for those not inclined to read it, here is the conclusion drawn by the authors:

CONCLUSION

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil -- at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed strict gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Emphasis mine

In other words, as we gun advocates have long known, the observable facts simply will not support the emotional arguments of the gun grabbers regarding both violent crime and suicide. Interestingly, the study also relates a survey of incarcerated felons that confirms that a criminal's greatest fear is that his victim may be armed. That certainly makes the case for a well-armed citizenry regardless of the definition of militia.

You should read the entire study and then make sure your elected representatives read it.